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Laugh at Yourself: The Wrong Profile

Updated: Jul 10, 2020


Soooo I've been waiting for a new fitness tracker and watch. I had a Fitbit that broke, and a smartwatch that was answering my phone for me in the middle of meetings as I experienced great embarrassment not knowing which doggone button to make it stop before it stopped on its own. This time I went online and found a fitness tracker with bells and whistles to tell me my blood pressure, heart rate, the time, and date, and how many steps I take. In this time of "get-it-quick", I didn't. It took six weeks for it to arrive with some help from COVID-19. It finally arrived last week. I took it out with enthusiasm as I do when I get something I've ordered and awaited. It only took two hours to charge. I took it off the charger and began to set it. I was hassled a bit with my phone connecting to the app to Bluetooth via a QR code. After getting through it all, I began to set my profile... I selected female because I am and here's where it goes dark... I began to wonder if the app was ready for someone with my particular profile markers. The app was adamant that I tell it the date of my last cycle, if I wanted a child, if I was nursing, etc. A little odd, I thought but, I kept trying to make it happy. I did all I could to escape but discovered that it wasn't ready for a woman in menopause who needed a calendar and a map to remember anything. There was no check for that. Then I added my year of birth after scrolling backward for a while. After other questions were satisfied, it finally asked for my height, weight, and weight goal... After a very pregnant pause as if it had to really think about it or compute by using scientific calculator... wait for it,... it reported back to me that in order to reach my goal I would need 35,000 steps a day!!! In my best Scoobie Doo voice, I said, "ruh-ro". I don't think I'm gonna make this. In another lifetime I would have been devastated but the me who loves myself put the thing on my arm and kept it moving. Later on, I thought about the whole process and I cracked up. I mean laugh out loud laughing at it all. I have work to do for sure to reach my fitness goals but since I'm not training for a marathon anytime soon, the regular goal of 10,000 steps will have to do. I waited for six weeks for something to tell me to do something at this stage in my life that is un-do-able. I'm thinking with this tracker, it's going to take considerably longer to get there, and that's fine with me and funny as it can be!


Lesson: You don't have to wait six weeks for a gadget to define you if you already know who you are. To profile me is to demean me and I won't give life to that.





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